Marketing agency Rosetta released a study Thursday that found Bill Me Later and PayPal are the most popular alternative payment options on the Web, capturing 26 percent and 25 percent market share, respectively. Google Checkout increased its share by just 1 percent in 2008 commanding just 11 percent of the market.
Rosetta also found that 37 percent of the top 100 major retailers on the Web employ alternative payment options like those offered from PayPal and Bill Me Later, but just 7 percent of those retailers offer all three services.
iPhone developer Smule announced Thursday that it has secured $3.9 million of funding in a round that was led by Granite Ventures. According to the company, its apps have been downloaded by more than 1 million users and due to that success, it was able to raise the capital. It plans to use its funding to further invest in apps for the iPhone and other mobile devices.
Mixx, a Digg-like service "for the mainstream," launched a new homepage Thursday called YourMixx and will allow users to decide whether they want the company's new page to be their start page or their individual notifications page. The company also announced that users who write polls that are selected for publication on the site will be rewarded with "Karma and props." The Mixx user who has the most polls published will be given a Pollster badge to add to their profile page.
Enterprise microblogging service Yammer will announce a hosted version of its software Thursday that can be installed inside a corporate firewall, TechCrunch is reporting. Yammer customers will be able to switch from the SaaS version of the software to the hosted service and it plans to transfer network information between both iterations, the report claims. Yammer plans to charge $12 per seat per year.
eBay will lay off about 10 percent of its workforce, the company announced Monday, and said third-quarter results will come in at the low end of expectations.
The company also announced plans to acquire online payments business Bill Me Later for $820 million in cash and approximately $125 million in outstanding options, as well as Danish classifieds specialist Den Bla Avis and vehicle site BilBasen for approximately $390 million in cash.
eBay said its workforce reduction, which cuts about 1,000 jobs, will result in a pretax restructuring charge of between $70 million and $80 million, which will be taken in the fourth quarter of 2008, eBay said. The online retailer will also let go several hundred temporary workers and reduce the number of open positions.
The company, scheduled to report third-quarter results on October 15, said on Monday that it expects to hit the low end of its revenue guidance, and exceed GAAP and non-GAAP earnings per share. eBay said in July that it expected net revenues of between $2.1 billion and $2.15 billion for the third quarter, with GAAP earnings per diluted share of between 30 cents and 32 cents per share, and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share of between 39 cents and 41 cents per share.
Previously: Amazon invests in BillMeLater. Our advice: Say no now.
Amazon has invested in the alternative payment processing company Bill Me Later, a very clever system that makes it easy for consumers to acquire items at online stores without entering an account or credit card number. The system only asks for your birth date and the last four digits of your social security number. From that information it determines if you're an acceptable credit risk, and if you are, it completes the purchase and signs you up for billing and for the plan's credit terms.
Bill Me Later is an extraordinarily easy way to pay for a product or service, but smart consumers should avoid it. Here's why: it's a credit plan, and one with very high rates. While Bill Me Later purchases that are paid off before a certain period (90 days for purchases up to $500, six months for purchases more than that) are interest-free, if you miss that cutoff you'll be responsible for paying 19.99 percent APR interest backdated to the point of purchase. It's the standard, "Make no payments for six months!" scheme that low-end furniture shops use. It's great for the debt holders, but bad for consumers.
Buy now, pay later.
It's also great for Amazon, which has a history of offering payment schemes that encourage impulse purchasing. 1-Click shopping and Amazon Prime both defer the presentation of the real costs of acquiring products. Also, Amazon is establishing itself as a Web services company as well as a commerce site, and this investment gives it yet another product it can market to its services customers.
You can experiment with Bill Me Later right now on several sites, but if you already have a credit card at a more reasonable rate (and with useful features like reward miles and extra warranty protection), you'd be better off using that instead. If for some reason you don't, you'd probably be wise to not buy stuff online anyway.
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